Daily Current Affairs, 30th March 2019

1) Government Leaves Interest Rate On Small-Saving Schemes Unchanged

•The Finance Ministry has decided to keep the interest rate unchanged on small savings schemes for the three-month period beginning April 1. The announcement covers small-saving schemes such as the Post Office Saving Accounts, Post Office Time Deposits, the National Saving Certificates (NSC), the Public Provident Fund (PPF), the Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) and Sukanya Samriddhi.

•The unchanged interest rate means the NSC (5 years) and the PPF (15 years) will fetch 8% interest, while money deposited in KVP will double in little over nine years. At the same time, if one is parking money in a fixed deposit with a maturity of five years with the State Bank of India, he/she will get 6.85%. Senior citizens will get half a percent more: 7.35%.

2) India, Australia To Hold Bilateral Exercise AUSINDEX In Vishakhapatnam

•The third edition of the biennial, bilateral exercise AUSINDEX 19 between India and Australia will be held in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The upcoming exercise will focus on anti-submarine warfare and will see Australia’s largest defence force deployment in India.

3) India & Bolivia Sign 8 MoUs In Various Fields Including Culture, Mining, Space

•President Ram Nath Kovind has been conferred with the highest State honor of Bolivia, “Condor de Los Andes en el Grado de Gran Collar” during his visit to Bolivia. President of Bolivia Evo Morales awarded him the Honour at a function held in Santa Cruz.




•On the second day of President’s three-day visit to Bolivia, India and Bolivia signed eight MoUs in the fields of culture, Visa waiver arrangement for diplomats, exchange between diplomatic academies, mining, space, traditional medicine, establishment of Centre of Excellence in IT and Bi-Oceanic Railway project.

•India offered a 100 million US Dollar Line of Credit to Bolivia for financing development projects. Both countries also agreed on the need for reform of the UN Security Council to make it reflective of contemporary realities. President is in Bolivia on the 2nd leg of his 3 nation tour. He is on a three-nation visit to Croatia, Bolivia, and Chile.

4) PFC Becomes India’s 2nd Largest State-Owned Financial Firm

•State-owned Power Finance Corporation (PFC) has completed the acquisition of majority stake in REC Ltd by transferring Rs 14,500 crore to the government. The merger of both the entities will be completed in the next fiscal year in consultation with the government.

•This acquisition and merger will make PFC second-largest government-owned financial player in the country based on the current market capital after State Bank of India (SBI) and also PFC will be the third-highest profit-making financial player in India.

5) Dr Rajendra Joshi Conferred With ‘Pravasi Bhartiya Samman’

•Swiss-based NRI scientist Dr Rajendra Joshi has been conferred with the Pravasi Bhartiya Samman Award by the President of India Ram Nath Kovind. The Indian Ambassador to Switzerland Sibi George handed over the award citation signed by the President to Dr Joshi at his residence in Switzerland.